Li Bin might just be the next protagonist in the uplifting narratives of the digital age.

Despite publicly disavowing the role of a protagonist and disagreeing with such narratives, the automotive industry is replete with such inspiring true stories. A year ago, Xpeng's monthly sales hovered just above 9,000 units, with its four models collectively selling less than 10,000 units. Many in the industry urged it to "sell to the masses" as soon as possible. Yet, in 2025, Xpeng delivered over 30,000 units in a single month for the sixth consecutive month, and its success overshadowed most criticisms.

This striking contrast in narratives is also evident in Huawei's AITO, Li Auto, and BYD. In the second half of 2023, AITO disrupted the market for vehicles priced above 250,000 yuan with the consecutive launches of the new M7 and AITO M9. Li Auto first discontinued the ONE and then followed up with the L series to counter Huawei's AITO.

BYD's story is even more remarkable. At the launch event for BYD's 5 millionth new energy vehicle, Wang Chuanfu choked up three times. The first time was in 2003 when he chose the new energy path amidst market ridicule and criticism. The second time was in 2019 when the company's capital chain was almost broken, and survival was the only goal.

The reason why uplifting stories and dramas are so popular on the internet is that they resonate with human nature and stimulate dopamine secretion. Li Bin's promotion of integrating three brands and a series of subsequent preparatory forces are also brewing a counterattack.

After 18 months of preparation, Li Bin has shed his mental burden.

On May 9, 2025, news of NIO's integration of its three brands spread rapidly through the media. However, unlike what the industry expected, four days later, NIO had not officially responded to this.

Of course, it seems that no response is necessary. Staff from NIO, Letao, and Firefly brands have already been busy with the transition. Having 2-3 meetings a day to make decisions on the direction after the transformation has become routine.

The new round of organizational structure adjustments is as follows:

NIO's Product Design and Development Cluster (PD&D) will establish a new Level 1 Product Design and Development Department for Letao. The product experience, project management, design, and vehicle engineering from the original Letao Business Department will be incorporated into this department. Simultaneously, a new Letao Brand Product Line Department will be established, which will directly report to NIO CEO Li Bin.

NIO's User Service and Experience Cluster (UE) will establish a new Level 1 User Service Department for Letao, responsible for the original Letao's planning and operations, regional sales strategies, regional sales operations, regional sales management, marketing, and other departments. The head of this department, Shen Fei, will report to co-founder Qin Lihong.

The Letao Marketing Event Planning Department and regional sales companies will be merged into the UE cluster as Level 2 departments, with reporting relationships unchanged. NIO's third brand, Firefly, will be incorporated into the PD&D cluster.

From the outside, this appears to be a whirlwind of changes at NIO, leading many netizens to leave comments advising Li Bin on how to be a CEO, such as "Look, you've come full circle" or "We've been saying this all along".

However, as of now, there is a significant information gap in the outside world's understanding of NIO's changes. Essentially, this was not a sudden decision by Li Bin; this decision has been brewing and paving the way for at least half a year.

As early as the end of 2024, rumors of a possible integration had already circulated within NIO's R&D department. On February 16, 2025, we received news that NIO and Letao would integrate their sales channels and verified this with relevant senior executives at NIO, receiving the reply, "It's not true".

Notably, when Ai Tiecheng, the former general manager of Letao, announced his departure on April 2, we conducted a new round of verification and found that Ai Tiecheng's frequency of appearing in the company had begun to decrease after the Spring Festival holiday.

In fact, if we calculate the time NIO has been brewing its counterattack, it could be as short as 18 months or as long as 30 months ago. NIO IN was a crucial turning point. With technological breakthroughs, it became possible to fully decentralize and widely equip technology.

At NIO IN, NIO unveiled all its self-developed technologies. However, for the public and most media, whether it was the self-developed OS or the world model, they were obscure and difficult to understand, so they did not gain much attention. But now, with NIO's ET9 and a series of NT2.5 models successively releasing new technologies, the explanation cost of NIO IN and NIO's investment of over 20 billion yuan has significantly decreased.

Of course, if we compare the technology implementation of NIO with that of similar mainstream automakers in the industry, such as Huawei's ADS3.0 and Li Auto's VLM+ end-to-end, NIO's technology decentralization is obviously slower. Both old and new car owners are eagerly anticipating a change.

Regardless, NIO's new round of actions already indicates that it is moving towards a more efficient, realistic, and down-to-earth approach. From the perspective of brand integration, it is not as simple as the outside world interprets it as saving money.

Li Bin constantly emphasizes that NIO achieved profitability in the fourth quarter, and simply relying on cost savings is not Li Bin's style. What he wants to do is leverage the full strength accumulated over 10 years of the brand to achieve a surge in sales without engaging in a price war.

But undoubtedly, Li Bin's mindset has also undergone real changes now. People often say that knowledge changes destiny, but in reality, cognition changes destiny. In the business world, the reason why Li Bin's resume is impressive and creates stories reminiscent of uplifting online novels is closely related to his cognition.

"In the Peking University circle, Li Bin has access to more information and choices than ordinary people." Therefore, NIO is an automaker with the least animalistic and the most humanistic characteristics in the Chinese automotive circle. Li Bin uses sociological logic to build an interactive platform and gameplay where every car owner is equal. Li Bin pays great attention to the various needs of old car owners, which is almost completely different from other new forces that discontinue old models and upgrade new models to survive.

Li Bin has also done many things that do not conform to "business unwritten rules." For example, when the capital chain was close to breaking in 2019, he still provided full compensation to departing employees and purchased a series of supplemental benefits for current employees.

All of this, if compared with Jiyue Automobile in 2024 or the increasing number of automakers laying off employees and shutting down now, the answer is self-evident.

Of course, competition in the business world is brutal. Seeing how Li Shufu is accelerating Geely's "Taizhou Declaration" and how German and Japanese giants are integrating and open-sourcing, Li Bin of NIO is also approaching the planned counterattack time point.

Stealing customers from Li Auto and AITO has already begun.

Essentially, NIO's current actions are the same in principle as many successful companies. For example, managing costs like BYD, or managing the long-term development of the enterprise like BMW and Mercedes-Benz when they faced challenges multiple times over 100 years, in simpler terms, squatting down before leaping up.

Taking BYD as an example, its strongest point is its self-research and self-production capabilities, continuously reducing waste, expanding scale, reusing technology, and redefining products. This has laid the foundation for BYD to sell over 3 million vehicles in the market and even challenge sales of 4-5 million vehicles annually. Taking Li Auto as another example, it was able to become the first Chinese new force to achieve profitability due to its extremely high internal efficiency and cost-saving strategies.

Now, recalling the scene of NIO IN in 2024, everything that is happening now is easy to understand. The key information released in July 2024 included the successful tape-out of the world's first 5-nanometer intelligent driving assistance chip, which will be mass-produced in 2025; the full release of the vehicle-wide operating system; the release of the Banyan 3 intelligent system; the release of China's first intelligent driving world model; the upgrade of the intelligent driving technology architecture, with AES and others already pushed in the second half of 2024; and the more idealistic NIO PHONE, which is no longer mentioned now.

The results were demonstrated at the launch event of the NIO ET9, such as the champagne tower placed on the front of the car that did not fall over when going over speed bumps, and the NIO ET9 not losing control when a tire was torn and deflated while driving at high speeds.

Of course, these are essentially presentations of specific applications. The full release of the NIO ET9's capabilities is obviously a major task. Whether NIO will learn from this after the launch of the Zenith S800 remains to be seen.

Although NIO is still adopting a strategy of hiding the meat in the rice, the good news is that there is meat in its rice, and it does not need to be forcibly concocted. As long as the subsequent direction is correct, it will be easy to gain an advantage.

Take the newly released NIO ES6 as an example. In fact, there are still many highlights on this car that have not been revealed, which can be listed as follows: standard ADB multi-beam headlights across all trims, double-layered silver-plated windshield, the first mass-produced side window sandwich insulation, 15mm-thick seats with the same sponge layer as the NIO ET9, seat support spring area increased by 20% and thickness increased by 10%, front seats automatically move forward when getting in and out of the rear seats, steering wheel controls with the same touch as the iPhone 16 back cover, softer suspension hydraulic bushings, newly added rear subframe hydraulic bushings, CDC re-calibrated for comfort, stable control at 130km/h in the event of a tire blowout, touch-enabled NOMI, gesture-controlled NOMI, new intelligent driving assistance chip, upgraded perception system, and more.

With NIO ES6, the main force bearing sales, taking the lead, there is still room for continued adjustment for NIO ET5 and NIO ET5T. The listing dates of the two are only 10 days apart. During these 10 days, as long as precise big data analysis is conducted on NIO ES6, it is easy to determine which configurations are well-received by consumers and which are relatively average, enabling precise reuse of configurations and pricing SKUs.

In short, there are people who understand the industry, and there are also consumers who are aware of new technologies and products. During the weekend when NIO ES6 and NIO EC6 opened for pre-orders, as new vehicles arrived at various NIO Houses, those who recognize battery swapping have already ended their mental struggle with extended-range EVs.

They have abandoned the idea of purchasing vehicles from Li Auto or AITO, instead choosing to wait for the new NIO ES6 and what price NIO will offer.

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